The use of wind mills is known in the prior art. More specifically, wind mills have been designed and used for the purpose of generating electricity or raising liquids from the earth, primarily to provide water to livestock such as cattle in remote arid locations. One common usage of a windmill was to bring water to the surface and discharge it into a holding tank. Typically, windmills are known to consist basically of familiar, expected, and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the prior art which has been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
In the construction of devices for the raising of liquid, such as the drawing of water from a well, it is desirable to avoid the unnecessary use of fossil fuels. Typically, in modern settings, water is drawn from a well by the use of a pump including a moving piston, valving, and an electric or gasoline driven motor for driving the piston. Thus, the typical liquid lifting device is characterized by a variety of moving parts as well as a drive unit which either employs the use of fossil fuels such as gasoline, or utilizes the electric power which, in both cases, necessitates the burning of petroleum, coal, natural gas or other fossil fuels. The foregoing characteristics of the typical pumping system are disadvantageous because of the necessity for the fossil fuel consumption. The foregoing disadvantages become more severe when the liquid lifting device is to be operated at a remote site, such as in the desert, as might be the case for an irrigation project. At such remote sites, the foregoing disadvantages are exacerbated by the necessity to transport the fuel a long distance or, to construct electric power transmission lines for a long distance. Also, during times of wild uncontrolled fires, the electrical supply is usually disrupted, rendering useless the electrically driven fire fighting systems. With the advent of electricity into rural areas, many of the old windmills have been replaced with electrically driven pumps. However, large areas lie outside the reach of electrical power, thereby making it necessary to utilize wind or organic fuel supplies as alternative sources of power.
Common windmills have additional perceived deficiencies. For example, common windmills have no variation of mechanical advantage, limiting the system to no water production at low wind velocities. Further, common windmills provide no discharge pressure, thereby limiting the usage of the water to the outlet or gravity feed to lower elevations and the system can not be used in unprotected areas during periods of sustained temperatures below freezing. Additionally, common windmills typically are incapable of pumping from deep wells at low wind velocities and require high maintenance of the associated gearbox and wind motor.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide an improved windmill with improved efficiencies and mechanical attributes and which does not require fossil fuels. It would be further advantageous to provide an adequate supply of water for domestic use and fire fighting at homes that lie outside the efficient reach of urban fire fighting equipment, and have elevations above the elevation of the windmill.
It would also be advantageous to provide a wind driven pumping system to provide water for livestock. Depending upon weather conditions and terrain, cattle and other range animals will not travel beyond a certain distance from their drinking water, thereby leaving large areas of pasture unusable while over-grazing those areas closer to the drinking water.
It is also advantageous to provide a wind-driven pumping system which will compress gas such as methane or hydrogen into a pressure bottle for utilization as a fuel in an internal combustion engine or fuel cell.